Winter 2014

Martin Crimp, The Country

Martin Crimp and The Country: Martin Crimp (*1956) belongs among the most creative and aesthetically prolific playwrights of our time. His dramatic work consists of twelve major plays, various stage adaptations and translations of playwrights such as Chekhov, Marivaux, Genet, Ionesco, and Koltès, as well as award winning radio plays.

The countryside in Crimp’s The Country (2000) is no place of idyll. In five scenes that are loosely connected slices of the lives of the protagonists an altogether inconclusive plotline unravels. The prevailing atmosphere is that of intriguing, creepy menace often reminiscent of the best of Harold Pinter: Rebecca is the intruding stranger, Morris remains an unseen character, the dialogue is clipped, rackingly stichomythic, and even single words run a sinister and enigmatic ring around themselves. ...

Read the full text of Martin Middeke’s introduction to The Country here.

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• Take a look at our programme for The Country, ...
• ... at our press release (in German) ...,
• Listen to Bettina Auerswald’s sound tracks Intro and Scissors.
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• Augsburger Allgemeine review of the AnglistenTheater’s production of The Country.